Notions Marketing growing by leaps and bounds in old factories

Notions Marketing received permission to build this elevated conveyor and walkway across Cottage Grove SE.Courtesy rendering

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Notions Marketing Inc. is growing by leaps and bounds in the sales and distribution of supplies for arts and crafts, scrapbooking and other hobby stores.

The next leap and bound will be across Cottage Grove Street SE on the city’s near Southeast Side as the company prepares to expand into the old Doehler-Jarvis factory it acquired earlier this year from WB Haulers Inc.

City commissioners approved Notions’ request to build an elevated conveyor system and walkway across Cottage Grove Street SE to connect its warehouse operations on the south side of the street with its recently acquired facility north of the street.

The City Commission also agreed on Tuesday, Nov. 19, to abandon its claim on a 66-foot stretch of Union Avenue SE that dead-ends on the Notions property.

Herb Lantinga, the company’s owner, said it may take more than a year to remodel the new facility and build the 150-foot-long elevated walkway and conveyor.

But Lantinga said he needed the city’s permission in his pocket before he began remodeling the building at 600 Cottage Grove SE.

“If we can’t connect with the conveyor, we can just use it for storage,” Lantinga said. “I wanted to know for sure that we can do it. This changes the way we can use that building.”

Lantinga, whose father started the company in the basement of their family home in 1938, now employs 750 workers. Lantinga said he wants to hire another 100 seasonal workers.

Notions supplies hobby and craft stores throughout the world with items that are manufactured on a small scale for hobbyists and artists. The company offers its retail customers more than 140,000 different items, having added more than 32,000 items alone in 2013, according to its website.

Lantinga said his company now owns five old industrial buildings in the city, including the former Heckman Furniture and Irwin Seating factories along Buchanan Avenue SW.

Rather than building new warehouses, Lantinga said he prefers to buy the old buildings for two reasons: his preference for paying cash and the proximity the old factories give him to his workforce.

“Old buildings that are worthless to most people can be purchased at fantastic prices,” he said. “But by the time you end up making them good enough to use, it probably costs you more than a new building.”